The Gawker editorial staff may be trying to unionize, publicizing a meeting with the Writers Guild; ownership appears not to object

What is the Apple Watch about if not push notifications? That seems to be what most app updates that mention the Apple Watch are really all about – and if that is what the Apple Watch becomes, it may be as dreaded a device to wear as the old beepers were.

The first Canadian news organization, I believe, to update their app for the Apple Watch is CBC News who issued their update last night.

“Receive breaking news in push notifications, see the latest headline in a Glance, get more details in the Watch App and then seamlessly continue reading the story on your iPhone,” the app description says.

That sounds to me like many see the Watch as a device that alerts you to the fact that you have something to read on your iPhone – I would think turning up the volume on your iPhone to hear the push notification coming through would do just as well. (OK, I suppose you’ll be able to see some very short headline on your Apple Watch, to. But really, just how lazy are the rich becoming that they can’t reach for their iPhone instead?)

Air Canada, which was one of the first airlines to update their iPhone app to add Apple Watch support, updated their app again for “Improvements to Check-in and Boarding Notifications.”

Actual size?

Because of the nature of the App Store, screenshots of apps are not seen at their actual size – that is, a screenshot of an iPad is necessarily smaller than it is in real life, an iPhone screenshot is either slightly larger or slightly smaller than real size.

I mention this because the screenshot being seen of the Apple Watch in action are so much larger than they would be in real life that many buyers are going to be surprised to learn that they may have to reach for their reading glasses every time they get a push notification on their new watch.

The picture Apple is using currently on its home page of the Apple Watch shows the device is 4.5 inches tall by 3.4 inches wide, for instance. Great to see what might appear on the face of the watch, but hardly indicative of what the watch will look like in real life. Caveat emptor.

The prospects that Greece may exit the Euro seemed to be increasing once again as “liquidity is drying up”, the words of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. IMF loans to Greece fall due for repayment this spring, and while Greece looks for a delay in paying, the IMF looks for Greece “to get on with the work” of fixing the Greek economy.

Those who have not paid attention to the Greece fiscal crisis these past few years may wonder why things seem to be going so poorly. I’ve maintained my own position that it is caused by two intractable positions being held by Greeks at the same time: a desire to avoid additional austerity, combined with a desire to stay in the Eurozone. Despite the vote for Syriza recently, I see no change in the position of the Greeks I know that staying in the Eurozone is not something they are prepare to give up.

Employees at the website Gawker are planning to unionize, if a story posted to the website is to be believed.

Gawker Media is an online media company founded and owned by Nick Denton. Its properties, in addition to Gawker.com, include Deadspin, Gizmodo, io9, Jezebel, among others.

“Some of us on the Gawker Media editorial staff have decided to try to unionize,” Hamilton Nolan wrote on the website. It is a bizarre, if transparent way to announce a unionization effort – and one that won’t sit well with staffers opposed to the idea.

“Yesterday, a large group of editorial staffers representing many of our websites met with union organizers at the Writers Guild in New York. When a few dozen people know something, everyone here knows it,” Nolan wrote in explaining why the public acknowledgement of the move.

Obviously, management must not be totally opposed to the idea as they have allowed the post to run. In fact, owner Nick Denton IM-ed Capital NY to say “Journalists have a strong anarcho-syndicalist tradition. Content creators on the web have the same trait. Gawker Editorial is run like a worker’s collective. That seems to be the natural order of things.”

“Anarcho-syndicalist”? I haven’t heard that term in a while.

“A union is the only real mechanism that exists to represent the interests of employees in a company,” Nolan writes. “A union is also the only real mechanism that enables employees to join together to bargain collectively, rather than as a bunch of separate, powerless entities.”